CAPTOR 3.5.6 (iOS): Video Capture Enhancements

This week marks the release of CAPTOR 3.5.6 (iOS) for MobileIron, BlackBerry Dynamics, and our Enterprise AppConfig version for Microsoft Intune, VMware Workspace ONE (AirWatch), etc. This version includes big changes to the video capture process, with two new options allowing you more control over the recording function.

New Video Capture Options. Some of our customers use CAPTOR to record lengthy videos, sometimes up to one hour. In the past CAPTOR has always recorded the video at the highest definition possible by the device, which requires a lot of processing power and results in extremely large files in the container. Based on how some of our integration partners handle encryption and file storage, these large video files are challenging to move off of the device and to play back within the app.

To resolve this problem, we have implemented two new video recording options that will generate more manageable files. You will find these features at the top of the video capture screen.

FPS (Frames Per Second): Tap this new button to cycle through three or four options to change the FPS capture rate (options vary by device). This controls how often the frame is recorded per second, which dictates how smoothly the video appears during playback.

For example, an iPhone XS can record at 30, 24, or 16 FPS, so a 60 second video would include 1,800 frames at the highest rate verses 960 frames at the lowest rate. If a one minute video was recorded at high quality, the 30 FPS version would create a 107MB file, compared to the 16 FPS version creating a 61MB file. Both of these files are still quite large, so we also implemented a second feature that can be combined with FPS to further control the video’s quality/size ratio.

High/Med/Low Quality: The other new video recording feature allows you to select a recording quality (High, Medium, or Low) that changes the resolution of the video (think HD, SD, etc). You are now able to combine the FPS setting with the Quality setting to create the perfect video for your specific use case. We only recommend using the Low setting for extremely long recordings.

Going back to our iPhone XS one minute video example, if you set the quality to Medium and FPS 30, the file is now only 4MB.

It is important to point out that you will still have the three quality options at the sharing/exporting step. Sharing at High quality will retain the quality and size of the video as it exists on the device, while sharing at Medium or Low will substantially downsample the video. For example, the iPhone XS one minute video recorded at Medium and FPS 30 would export a file of 4MB (High) or .5MB (Low). The goal is to provide power and flexibility to the user to be able to create the right video for the situation.